The typical use of the invention is the completion of internet pages with interactive audio content. Internet pages, as is known, are comprised of HTML files which determine the layout and, optionally, of image files. These files are primarily prepared by http servers which are connected with the internet. The files are compiled and displayed with html browsers, especially “Netscape Navigator” from the firm Netscape or “Internet Explorer” from the firm Microsoft. The browser downloads all files from the internet and displays them subsequently on the monitor of the user.
This known state of the art is only limitedly suitable for the transmission of audio signals or video signals since the quantity of data to be transmitted is too great and must be integrated in the internet pages to be displayed. The loading time for a background sound or a radio transmission with a play time of an unending duration without repetition, leads to a loading time which is of limitless duration before a reproduction can commence.
This state of the art is integrated in present day web browsers by small programs, so-called plug-ins, like for example, the “Shockwave/Flash-Plug-In.” These enable extensive 3D animation and vector graphics to be displayed in addition to sound and music reproduction. For that purpose, however, the entire contents which are to be displayed, in conjunction with an internet page for the user, must be integrated in this internet page, including for example eighty different sound data when the user is to be presented with eighty different surfaces of the display pages with different sounds, for example, button sounds. All of this data must be previously loaded independently of whether the user will actually select them.
Another method (U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,734,199, 6,009,410) seeks to avoid such long loading times through the use of so-called “streaming,” in which the already received audio data and video data are continuously reproduced while the next data are received. The display of the internet page and the playback of the audio stream and video stream are effected completely independently from one another. This quasi parallel reproduction of image and sound is however associated with the drawback that for the playback of the stream, an external player is required in addition to the browser. Furthermore, the audio stream and/or the video stream can either be uncontrollable in an interactive manner through the internet page or can only be controlled to a limited degree in an interactive way over the internet page. As a consequence, the player provides an additional user interface. With the latter however, only the reproduction in the receiving device is controlled. The control possibilities for previously obtained data in the source is limited to a starting and stopping of the data stream.
Furthermore, such plug-ins and players can only function once a downloading and installation by the user has been achieved and that can be a difficulty. The downloading and installation process is often very complicated and may exceed the capacity of the user. Should the downloading of a plug-in or a player by the user be defective, there is the drawback that part of the internet page may not function and the user may not be able to use the internet to a significant extent. Many internet providers thus supply two versions of their internet page, one with and one without use of Flash. For the web designer the handling of the plug-in and player is also expensive and complicated. Flash can only be used with a special tool which must be incorporated in the internet page. In the case of internet pages embodying author systems, whose content may be varied, Flash must be matched with the aid of the tools.
This work is very time consuming and generally gives rise to an avoidance of such plug-ins.